


Searching

by TheDragon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Love Poems, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 02:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10867332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragon/pseuds/TheDragon
Summary: It’s hardly the first time Arthur is dying in his arms, and it’s hardly the first time Merlin isn’t able to save him.





	Searching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [larry_as_fuck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/larry_as_fuck/gifts).



> This was written for merlinreverse over on LJ. I had the pleasure of working with the wonderful [shanelleo](http://shanelleo.tumblr.com/) (also known as larry_as_fuck on AO3) Their [art](http://shanelleo.tumblr.com/post/160501674190/my-art-for-the-merlinreverse-i-worked-with-the) is beautiful and you should by all means go check it out!
> 
> The poem quoted in the fic is _A Red, Red Rose_ by Robert Burns.
> 
> See the end notes for **warnings**!

It’s hardly the first time Arthur is dying in his arms, and it’s hardly the first time Merlin isn’t able to save him. In this lifetime, it’s cancer.

They’re in hospital. Arthur is lying on the bed, just like he has been for the past few months, and Merlin lying next to him, trying to fight back his tears.

There’s not much time left now. The doctors said that Arthur has a few hours, at most.

“Merlin,” Arthur whispers, reaching up brush the wetness away from his cheeks. His hands are so much colder than Merlin is used to, so much colder than they’re _supposed_ to be and it breaks Merlin’s heart.

“I’m s-sorry,” Merlin replies amidst the sobs that are threatening to tear apart his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m--”

“Shhh… It’s alright,” Arthur tries to console him, moving his hand up and running it through Merlin’s hair. But no, this is wrong -- it’s Arthur who’s dying, not Merlin, and it’s _Merlin_ who’s supposed to be comforting _him_.

“It’s not, though. It’s not. You’re the one comforting me when it should be the other way around.” Merlin turns to bury his face in Arthur’s shoulder, nuzzling into him in the hopes of catching his familiar scent (he finds that he can’t; it’s been washed away by the illness and drugs and the long hospital stay). And Arthur is so frail now, his skin is paper-thin, but he’s still alive and Merlin will take whatever he can get.

He listens to the clock ticking somewhere over their heads while he tries to calm his breathing. He wants nothing more than to stop time, but he knows that if he did, he’d never be able to convince himself to start it up again.

“Read me a poem,” Arthur says after a while. Merlin sniffles and reaches up to wipe his nose.

“Which one?” he asks, reaching for the book of love poems Arthur keeps on the bedside table. It was a present from Merlin for their first anniversary in this lifetime. It’s old and worn because of how often it’s been read, but every yellowed page is treasured by them both.

“Whichever you’d like,” Arthur replies, smiling at him crookedly. Merlin could swear he feels his heart stop when he sees how Arthur’s eyes are barely even open any more. He does his best to ignore the searing pain in his chest as he opens the book, letting it fall open on a page of its own choosing.

 

_O my Luve's like a red, red rose,_

_That's newly sprung in June:_

_O my Luve's like the melodie,_

_That's sweetly play'd in tune._

 

Arthur lets out a huff of laughter.

“Should have known that’d be the one you’d choose," he whispers when Merlin finishes the first verse, “You’ve always loved the classics.” Merlin manages to put on a weak smile and leans over to kiss Arthur’s head before continuing. The words have to fight to make their way past the growing lump in his throat.

 

_As fair art thou, my bonie lass,_

_So deep in luve am I;_

_And I will luve thee still, my dear,_

_Till a' the seas gang dry._

 

Arthur’s eyes have closed, and his hand is gone from Merlin’s hair. Merlin forces himself to tear his eyes away, to return to the book and do this one last thing for Arthur, read this one last poem for Arthur. He grabs Arthur’s hand with one of his own.

 

_Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,_

_And the rocks melt wi' the sun;_

_And I will luve thee still, my dear,_

_While the sands o' life shall run._

 

Arthur’s breathing is quieting, and Merlin can no longer see the words on the page for the tears in his eyes. Each breath is weaker than the next, and Merlin knows, _knows_ that the doctor was wrong about Arthur having hours left.

 

_And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!_

_And fare-thee-weel, a while!_

_And I will come again, my Luve,_

_Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!_

 

Merlin lets the book fall from his hands as he turns towards Arthur. He let’s his hands stroke Arthur’s jaw and his cheeks; he brushes Arthur’s hair from his eyes, smooths the skin on his face.

“I love you,” he whispers, though he knows Arthur can no longer hear him. “I love you so much.”

Arthur is dead. And just like in every other lifetime this has happened, Merlin wishes that he were dead with him.

~oOo~

The next time they meet, it’s well into the future and soulmates are considered to be a thing of the past.

“The last soulbond was broken one hundred years ago, on this day exactly,” comes the professor’s monotonous voice, and Merlin can’t help but snort in contempt. The class goes quiet and all eyes turn to him. “Is there something you would like to add, Mr Emrys?”

“No, sir.” Merlin says. The professor glares at him for a few more seconds before returning to his lecture. Merlin is only able to bare a few more minutes of it. As quickly and quietly a he can, he gathers his things and slips out the door.

He shouldn’t have signed up for this class. He suspected it was a bad idea from the beginning, but today’s lecture served to reaffirm that.

The moment he makes it to a bench, he collapses onto it, dropping his bag somewhere on the floor. He hears something clatter to the floor and figures that his pens must have fallen out, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Arthur has been gone for eighty one years, exactly. And Merlin waited, is waiting still, and he’s not sure how much longer he can _keep_ waiting before he decides to do something drastic.

What if his professor is right? What if there really has been no soul bond in a hundred years? What if that’s the reason Arthur hasn’t come back to him and Merlin is stuck walking the Earth all alone.

What if, now that soulbonds are gone from the world, Arthur never comes back?

He can hear his classmates’ laughter as they leave the lecture hall, and he tries to get himself under control before anyone spots him.

Merlin sighs and leans his head against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. He needs time to stop for just a moment, needs nothing more than some peace and quiet, but his magic is out of control these days and using it is too risky.

“Are you alright?” Comes a voice from somewhere to his right.

“Fine,” he replies. “I’m fine.”

It’s become a mantra over the last couple of decades. He needs to be fine, _has_ to be fine for whenever Arthur walks back into his life.

 _If he walks back into his life_ , Merlin’s treacherous mind supplies.

He hears the stranger sigh, then feels the bench dip as he sits next to Merlin.

“Why did you walk out of class?” the man asks him after a few seconds of sitting there in silence.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Merlin replies coldly, because gods damn this man who thinks he has the right to pry into Merlin’s personal life.

The stranger sighs again and it only serves to aggravate Merlin further.

“It’s not. I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says. “But I can see my help isn’t wanted.” He gets up to walk away, and Merlin opens his eyes and --

\-- it’s Arthur that’s standing in front of him, Arthur wearing grey jeans and a blue dress shirt, Arthur with his blue eyes and blond hair, and he looks so beautiful and so _alive_ that Merlin’s breath catches in his throat.

For a moment, he wonders if he’s finally gone insane.

“Wait!” Merlin shouts after him when Arthur begins to walk away. For one panic-ridden second, he thinks that Arthur won’t bother to turn around, that he’ll just keep walking and go back to wherever he came from and Merlin will never see him again, will never hear his voice again, will never _touch_ him again -- but no, _thank the gods_ , Arthur stops and turns back to him, raises both eyebrows for good measure.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin says, then flinches at the memory the words bring. Death. No, not dead. Arthur’s not dead. He’s standing before Merlin, alive and well and _alive_ . “I was a prat. I’ve just had a bad couple of days.” _Years_ , his mind supplies, _Decades. Without you. Everything is so much worse without you_.

Arthur purses his lips and eyes him a bit wearily, but nods his head in acceptance.

“Let’s start this over. I’m Merlin,” Merlin says, getting up and stretching out his hand, waiting for Arthur to take it.

“Arthur,” comes the reply, and a second later Arthur’s hand is in his own and the touch is electrifying.

Arthur is back, and Merlin can hardly believe it.

~oOo~

They become friends rather quickly. It turns out that they share a few classes and live reasonably close to each other and Merlin wants nothing more than to laugh when he finds all of that out.

 _How_ , Merlin wonders, _Did I not find him earlier?_

The first time they kiss, it comes as a bit of a surprise to them both -- maybe to Merlin more than to Arthur, because up till now Arthur had not made any advances towards him, and Merlin had just managed to bring himself around to the idea that maybe in this lifetime, they were meant to be no more than best friends.

It happens while they’re at Merlin’s flat -- it’s a new flat now, not the one he shared with Arthur all those years ago; that one he’d been forced to sell when his neighbors started becoming suspicious of the fact that he wasn’t aging as much as he should have. They’re spread out on the soft carpet in the living room. There are books everywhere, and he can hear the telly running somewhere in the background with neither of them watching.

One moment, they’re joking around, teasing each other over something or other, the next they’re tumbling around on the floor because Arthur decided to tickle Merlin in revenge for a  good-natured jest, and the moment after that their lips are on one another’s and neither of them are willing to let the other go.

“Wow…” Merlin whispers, dazed, when they finally manage to break apart after what feels like hours. “That was… wow.”

“I’ve been wanting to do that for such a long time,” Arthur confesses into his ear. “You’ve been driving me crazy.”

“Wish you’d done it earlier. We’ve wasted so much time,” Merlin whispers back.

“I wasn’t sure you felt the same way,” Arthur admits quietly, and what choice does Merlin have but to pull him in for another kiss?

They end up skipping their lecture.

~oOo~

“Merlin?” Comes a shout from their bedroom.

 _Their_ bedroom.

Merlin smiles.

They’ve been together for three years now -- three years of _pure bliss_ \-- and Merlin never wants this to end. He wants to fall asleep and wake up next to Arthur every day for the rest of his life, and some days he’ll lay awake all night just to watch Arthur sleep.

“Yeah?” he asks, walking over to where Arthur is sitting in the door to the walk-in closet.

“What’s this?” Arthur asks, holding up a book.

 _Love Poems_.

It’s _their_ love poems -- the same book Merlin gave to Arthur in their previous lifetime, the same book he could never bear to part with no matter how many bad memories it brought back whenever Merlin so much as laid eyes on it.

But Arthur isn’t talking about the book -- he’s talking about the dedication handwritten on the first page.

 

_For Arthur,_

_As a token of my eternal love and devotion._

_\- Merlin_

 

The page is worn and rough in places, and some of the ink has run, but the words still stand out starkly against the yellowed paper.

Merlin makes to take the book from him, but Arthur moves it just out of reach. Merlin grits his teeth as it comes dangerously close to hitting the wall.

“Is… is there something I should know?” he asks, sounding so very uncertain that Merlin falls to his knees next to him.

“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out,” Merlin whispers.

“Merlin?” Arthur asks, but he hands over the book when Merlin holds out his hand. Merlin lets his fingers smooth over the words, the crinkles, the little tears on the edges of the page. He lets out a shaky breath. “What’s going on?”

“I. Just. Just promise you’ll hear me out before you say anything more,” Merlin pleads, looking back up at Arthur.

“Merlin, I--” Arthur begins, looking worried, but Merlin cuts him off.

“Just, please, Arthur. Please,” he begs. He’s biting at his lip, and he hates the fact that he even picked up this nervous habit in the first place. “Promise you’ll hear me out.”

“...I promise,” Arthur says. His hand is outstretched between them, and he seems to be unable to decide whether to put it on Merlin’s own hand or let it drop back to his side.

Merlin catches it in his own.

Merlin takes a deep breath, and then another after that. This is the hard part. He always hates this part, every time. He never knows what Arthur will do when he inevitably finds out about the previous lives they shared together -- whether he will rage and yell, hurt and confused, whether or not he’ll believe what Merlin is telling him, whether or not he will walk out and leave Merlin alo--

No. He can’t think that. Arthur wouldn’t leave him alone. He _wouldn’t_. Not after all the years they’ve spent together.

“I’m…” Merlin begins, but he’s not sure how to continue. “I’m not exactly who you think I am,” he continues, avoiding eye contact. He can sense Arthur’s growing anger and confusion and tightens his grip on Arthur’s hand in a plea for him not to pull away.

“This book was for you. I gave it to you, about a century ago and--” Arthur jerks his hand away.

“What--” he exclaims, but Merlin interrupts him before he can go any further but he makes no move to touch Arthur again, no matter how much comfor it would bring him. He can understand Arthur’s need to put a bit of distance between them, and Arthur’s needs are far more important than his own.

“You’ve lived through far more lifetimes than you know but _you never remember_.” Merlin says quickly. He can feel his hands shaking, and he runs his fingers over the book just to have something to do.

“You were a king in your first lifetime,” he says after a moment of silence. “You were a soldier in the previous one. You’ve always had a knack for leadership,” Merlin smiles softly, but it fades when he sees Arthur looking at him like he’s insane.

As he runs his fingers over the spine of the book, he’s struck with a sudden thought.

“There should be… I should have,” he whispers, as he begins to rifle through the pages looking for something, looking for a photo, that _one photo_ they took days before Arthur’s death, the one he’s never been able to look at because it reminded him of his failure to protect Arthur once again.

“Here,” he says, holding it out to Arthur when he finds it, being careful to keep his eyes off the subjects of the photograph. “It’s us.”

When Arthur doesn’t move to take it from him, Merlin puts it down on the floor in front of him and waits for a reaction.

Arthur starts to laugh, and Merlin’s heart sinks.

“I’ve always had these dreams,” Arthur says after he’s calmed down. “Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve dreamt I was a knight, or a soldier, or a Victorian gentleman -- and the only constant was this one man.”

The book falls from Merlin’s hands and hits the wooden floorboards with a soft thud.

“Were we soulmates?” Arthur asks after a while, still staring at the photograph. “ _Are_ we soulmates? Is that why we always end up finding each other?”

Merlin nods, unable to reply because of the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. He raises one hand to surreptitiously wipe his eyes with his sleeve, but of course, Arthur notices.

“Oh for the-- come _here_ you dolt,” are the only words that Merlin heard before he finds himself sobbing into Arthur’s chest.

“I-I’m sorry. I s-should have t-told you earlier,” he hiccups, but Arthur shushes him.

“I understand why you didn’t,” Arthur whispers, tightening his hold around Merlin’s waist. “You were scared.”

“I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t know when to tell you,” Merlin tries to explain. “I didn’t know _how_ to tell you. Didn’t think you would believe me.”

“Of course I believe you,” Arthur says. “How could you think I wouldn’t?”

“Because you don’t sometimes,” Merlin replies, pressing his face into the side of Arthur’s neck and inhaling deeply. He feels Arthur’s chest move as he sighs.

“I can be a prat sometimes, I admit,” he says. Merlin falls out of his lap when Arthur suddenly sits up. “Say, Merlin… in some of these dreams, you’re able to… _do_ things.”

Merlin feels every single muscle in his body tense at once.

“What kind of things?” he asks hesitantly, thoughts growing more foreboding by the second.

“Magical things,” Arthur replies, and before Merlin can wriggle his way out of Arthur’s hold, Arthur continues. “Things that I may or may not find very attractive. Things that you may or may not find a use for in our bedroom.”

Merlin pulls back to look at Arthur incredulously, looking for some sign that this is all a joke, but all he can see is how Arthur’s eyes are on Merlin’s lips, how his own mouth is fixed in a sultry smirk, and Merlin immediately melts back into Arthur’s hold.

“Arthur Pendragon, you kinky _bas_ \--”

Merlin doesn’t quite get to finish his sentence because Arthur deems this to be an appropriate moment to kiss him.

Merlin knows then, he _knows_ that he’ll wait for however long he must just to be with Arthur again, and while it may not be pleasant, he trusts that Arthur will find his way to him in the end.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warnings:** temporary major character death


End file.
